Best battery life in a laptop?

[Klosteral]

Hey guys,

I am after a laptop and I have been for some time. Initially I was going for something gaming grade, like a Metabox P150HM or ASUS G53 but have since upgraded my desktop with some high end parts and I have realised I am never going to be satisfied with a gaming laptop.

Instead, I want to find the laptops with the best battery life - for extended use - for under $1500AUD. I have heard some Acer laptops can have up to 8 hours of life, which is good, but I have not actually seen their laptops. I am interested in the ASUS U-series but again I have not seen them either. There is this ASUS 'Transformer' which is an EeeSlate+NetBook except it runs Android; not suitable for my applications. I am after either a laptop or netbook, whichever seems to best suit my needs after this thread.

My main applications will be e-mail, document processing, music editing and occasional photo/video editing. These are tasks that can be performed by just about any laptop - or so I believe - so I do not need anything too specialized. That said, I would like something with a decent processor and a version of Windows 7. Hard drive space is not really important; I can buy my own drive if I think it needs to be bigger (hybrid drive?). I am assuming I am probably not going to see an optical drive in a netbook, but it pays to keep ones eyes open.

Thanks,
-Klosteral

 

[dj1001]

If your used to high end machines a low end battery sipper is going to be a major pain to deal with.
I suggest something with an i5 and Nvidia graphics with optimus technology.

If you don't know what optimus is it will allow you to have a discrete graphics card but only use i when needed. When graphics usage is low the discrete card will shut off and the notebook will switch over to onboard intel graphics. This gives the battery life of a low end machine but enough graphics power to play most games as well as fly through photo editing and HD videos.

this SAGER in it's base configuration would be perfect. you may want to add a bit more memory and the 1920x1080 screen would be an awesome upgrade for only 65 bucks. BE sure to select it with windows.
http/www.xoticpc.com/sager-np5160-clevo-w150hn-pre-order-p-2999.html?wconfigure=yes

 

[Klosteral]

I have seen that laptop before; it is this one here:
http/www.affordablelaptops.com.au/contents/en-us/d396_metabox-clevo-w150hnq-laptop-notebook.html
But it has an average battery life of 4 hours, with XoticPC giving it 3-5hr as their rating. I have not seen any reviews for this item yet, so I am wondering whether or not to trust it, though I am thinking that it will be as solid as any other Clevo.

This would be fine for light gaming but I was hoping for something with 7+ hours battery life. As I only really want to do office-style tasks and some music editing on the laptop, I figured I could bear something a little slower.

I am still considering the W150HNQ/NP5160 but I would also appreciate some other options.

Thanks,
-Klosteral

 

[Klosteral]

Does anyone have any other options?

 

[Zeon]

I heard the Dell XPS 17 runs for about 7 hours, and it has a fairly decent graphics card. Don't know about that Dell quality though.
Here's a link:
http/www.dell.com/us/p/xps-l702x/fs

Be sure to get the one with greater battery life.

 

[Klosteral]

I do not like Dell very much; I avoid them when I can.
The graphics card is quite new but it is junk compared to some of the other cards. It is too powerful to be power-saving while being too slow for high-end performance or gaming.
Also, 17" is more of a desktop replacement, while I want more of a 14"-15" portable machine.

Thanks for the suggestion though,
-Klosteral